born Aug. 8, 1902, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng.
died Oct. 20, 1984, Tallahassee, Fla., U.S.
English mathematician and theoretical physicist.
His first major contribution, in 1925–26, was a general and logically simple form of quantum mechanics. About the same time, he developed ideas of Fermi-Dirac statistics . He then applied {{link=Einstein, Albert">Albert Einstein 's special theory of relativity to the quantum mechanics of the electron and showed that the electron must have spin of 12. His theory also revealed new states later identified with the positron. He shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics with Erwin Schrödinger . In 1932 Dirac was appointed to the Lucasian mathematics professorship at the University of Cambridge, a chair once occupied by Isaac Newton . He retired from Cambridge in 1968 and became professor emeritus at Florida State University in 1971.